The first game of the NFL season kicks off Thursday, and in another era, that would have meant women were losing their husbands to a fall full of football and fantasy leagues.
Not anymore.
The Fantasy Sports Trade Association(FSTA) reported that 41 million people participate in fantasy sports in the U.S. and Canada this year, and as you’d expect, 80 percent of this group is men.
But that also means 20 percent of that group — about 8.2 million fantasy players — are women.
And those women are helping to make the business of fantasy football bigger than it has ever been. The Wall Street Journal reported in June that fantasy sports make up a $3.3 billion industry, with football by far the most popular. That’s more than the $2 billion online dating industry and around the same amountSnapchat turned down from Facebook last year.
And as more men and women hop on the fantasy bandwagon, businesses suffer from a loss of productivity. The Chicago Tribune reported in August that a consultant estimated fantasy football could cost employers more than $13 billion in lost productivity — more than four times the fantasy industry’s worth.
To better understand the world of fantasy sports, here is a breakdown of the must-know fantasy stats from FSTA.
Gender breakdown: 20 percent female
Average age of a fantasy player: 34 years old
Hours per week spent on fantasy: 8.67 (That’s 355.47 million total hours a year spent on fantasy leagues.)
Hours per week spent watching sports: 17.9
Race: 89.8 percent Caucasian
Average annual league (and related) costs:$111
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